


He Learned to Smile

by t_stonehill



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-12-17 07:18:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21050474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/t_stonehill/pseuds/t_stonehill
Summary: Claude angst drabble. Really just an exploration of his inner psychology throughout his childhood and the Golden Deer route.





	He Learned to Smile

It was better to smile.

That was what he had learned over the years. If you screamed or cried or tried to fight back, it just made it worse. But, if when you father dragged you behind his horse as punishment, or when the other children kicked the shit out of you for being a Fodlan pansy, you looked up at them, your face bruised and bloody, and smiled? They never knew how to respond to a smile. And in the moment of their hesitation, you could run away, or sweep their legs out from under them and turn the fight in your favor.

A smile was good at hiding your feelings and even better at hiding your plans.

That’s why, when Claude first heard about his uncle’s death, and the power vacuum that had been left in the Leicester Alliance, Claude smiled.

Behind that smile was a secret hatred for his homeland and its damned pride. It was that pride, in the strength of Almyra, in Almyra’s prowess in battle, that had made them hurt him as a small child who didn’t yet know how to fight back. He hated Almyra for the sake of that child.

Claude had already been planning on eventually returning to his mother’s homeland, to see if he could find in Fodlan something better, more noble, than Almyran pride. This death, and his potential claim as heir, was a great opportunity for him to explore Fodlan from a position of strength and safety. He had learned early on that strength _was_ safety. He felt a twinge of guilt that he would be so glad for some poor stranger’s death, but guilt was not pragmatic. He had learned to be pragmatic.

That’s why, as a teenager, Claude set off for the school at Garreg Mach full of a sort of cautious hope.

He learned to hate Fodlan for the sake of that teenager.

Fodlan was, in its way, just as proud as Almyra, and for the same reasons. The people of Fodlan valued strength and battle prowess just as much as any Almyran, only they called themselves “knights” and dressed their behavior up in polite rules and called themselves better than Almyran “savages.”

Claude made new friends at Garreg Mach, smiling and laughing with them, knowing that if any of them knew he was Almyran, they would hate and fear him for it. If he had grown up in Fodlan, perhaps his peers would have bullied him for his Almyran heritage as much as anyone in Almyra had bullied him for his Almyran heritage. But he was no longer a child and knew how to not let himself be that vulnerable. He hid his Almyran heritage behind a smile.

His smile also hid his true plans, as he snuck around the monastery at night to search for forbidden books and secret knowledge. He had grown up in Almyra, so he was already years behind the other Fodlan noble children, who had had their whole lives to learn the history of Fodlan. They had lived the history of Fodlan. Claude had a lot of work ahead of him to catch up. Knowledge would give him the power to execute the plan that was slowly forming in his mind.

If pride was what caused people to hate and hurt each other, pride in nation and heritage, then he would take away their reasons to be proud. He would destroy both Foldan and Almyra, not the places, not the people, but the concepts. He would tear down the invisible walls that kept nations separate and force people to view each other for who they were, not where they were from.

But before he had the chance to act, that very pride caused his friends to spark a civil war against each other, and he, from his position of power and safety, was suddenly uniquely vulnerable. He had no choice but to go to war himself. He was forced to change his plans, to accelerate them. If he had no choice but to go to war, he would smile until the other side faltered and he could turn the tide of the battle in his favor.

Again and again, he faced friends in battle. Friends whose pride wouldn’t let them see reason or compromise. Again and again, he let his arrows fly.

Guilt was not pragmatic.

Finally, the final battle. Claude came face to face with Edelgard, whose pride had started all this, and whose pride wouldn’t let it end without her death. She had lost decisively again and again. She had already given up, Claude could tell. And still she insisted on fighting, on dying. Full of grief and rage, his face bloody and bruised from long battle, Claude let one last arrow fly.

And he smiled.

It was better to smile.


End file.
